• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, July 26, 2013

After an 18 month hiatus on new acquisitions, MDC Partners is back in the hunt, company executives said Thursday.

But the company will be thinking smaller on the M&A front going forward, said Miles Nadal, MDC’s founder and CEO. “We are looking at small tuck-under [deals],” he said, in areas including analytics, multicultural, experiential, consumer insights and media.

Nadal made his remarks in a conference call with analysts Thursday to discuss second quarter financials. Results were “very strong,” asserted Nadal, who has never been shy about touting the company’s performance, strategy and track record, which he did frequently during the call.  

Nadal had reason to brag as the company reported a 34% gain in EBITDA to $43.4 million on a 5.3% revenue gain to $273.5 million. Organic revenue growth was 5.7%, highest so far among Adland holding companies reporting their second quarter numbers.

The company recorded $20 million in net new business revenue for the quarter and $73 million for the first half of the year.

The company’s media operations performance outpaced other units at the firm, said company CFO David Doft. Those operations, managed under MDC’s Maxxcom Global Media arm, posted a double-digit revenue gain and bottom line growth “north of 20%,” said Doft.

Results were so outstanding that the company raised its full-year EBITDA guidance to between $152 million and $157 million, or an increase of 28-to-32%.

Still, said Nadal, clients are “cautious” for the most part with regard to their outlook on the economy. “The world isn’t wonderful,” he said. What MDC has succeeded in doing, he asserted, is to increase the “share of wallet” from client budgets “at the expense of competitors.”